PLNA Members Win Major Awards at 2014 Philadelphia Flower Show

Each year Philadelphia Flower Show exhibitors, representing the best talents in the floral and landscaping fields, create full-scale displays that delight more than a quarter million visitors. Many of these exhibitors have spent decades perfecting their craft, which often includes forcing a great variety of plants into bloom in time for the Show. Exhibitors spend an average of 18 months preparing their displays. With only nine days to show off their talents, each company or organization must pull out all stops to be considered the very best.  Please join PLNA in congratulating these fellow members on their award achievements from the 2014 Philadelphia Flower Show!

PHS Philadelphia Flower Show Cup--Best in Show: Landscape

Stoney Bank Nurseries
paired with Brandywine River Museum of Art
Beauty of the Brandywine
Three generations of Wyeths have captured the unique land, water, fields, and native plant environs that have been the inspiration for a distinguished Brandywine River Valley culture. The native sycamore trees, painted and captured by the Wyeth family, give shade to woodland ferns, flowers, and gurgling streams that come together to form the iconic Brandywine River. This is a perfect metaphor for the current community working together to preserve a sustainable future in the fields and forests of the Brandywine River Valley. This exhibition is inspired by the collection of Wyeth art at the Brandywine River Museum of Art.
Contact: J. Joseph Blandy, RLA, ASLA
61 Stoney Bank Rd Glenn Mills PA 19342
610-459-5100
http://www.stoneybanknurseries.com

The Philadelphia Trophy--best use of color (Landscape)

J. Downend Landscaping
paired with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Avant-Garden
A stroll through “Avant-Garden” will transport you into Marsden Hartley’s painting, Flower Abstraction, hanging in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Experience bold, brightly colored forms as well as overlapping and appealing planes represented in this painting. Brilliant colors and jagged lines burst out of the garden, or is it the painting, spilling across the vibrant border? After experiencing the “Avant-Garden,” walk across Broad Street to PAFA and see the inspiration, Flower Abstraction. Garden imitates art, or does art imitate garden?
Contact: Tom Morris
411 Smiley St, Crum Lynne, PA 19022
610-833-1500

http://downendlandscaping.com

Chicago Horticultural Society Flower Show Medal

Temple University, Ambler, School of Environmental Design
Tamanend’s Track – The Path to a Portrayal of the Past
Rogue roots split and cover a cracked concrete walk lying beneath vines that drip, droop, and drape over kinked cables that connect faraway and nearby, and lamps that pour light on walls pierced by pipes. Retreat! There, into the stone belly; held within the arms of trees; before the fire; beneath the stars. Look beyond the tangle and artificial depictions of nature. Retrace the trail that leads to the land of our forebears. Sear the soil to stimulate new shoots of native leaves. Mend the Earth to clear the running waters. Help life begin, again.
Contact: Rob Kuper, PLA, ASLA
580 Meetinghouse Rd, Ambler,  PA 19002-3999
267-468-8179
http://www.temple.edu/ambler/la-hort/

Bulkley Medal of The Garden Club of America

Delaware Valley College of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Science
Breakout!
Nature Deficit Disorder is a widening gap or disconnect between people, particularly children, and the outdoors, which is resulting in a decrease in physical and emotional health and well-being. This exhibit is intended to bring awareness, hope, and strategies to the millions of children that suffer from this deficit. In a collaborative partnership, DelVal is engaging the 1,400 students and their teachers from the New Hope-Solebury School District to contribute a part of themselves to the exhibit. Children from kindergarten through 12th grade were asked to answer, through art, the question, “What is nature?” The intention is to encourage a strong connection between children and our natural world while educating exhibit visitors about Nature Deficit Disorder, its consequences, and possible remedies through the eyes of children.
Contact: Michael J. Fleischacker, MLA, ASLA, RLA, LEED AP
700 E. Butler Ave, Doylestown, PA 18901
215-489-2330
http://www.delval.edu